diff --git a/.prow.sh b/.prow.sh
index b18c53581..b92678291 100755
--- a/.prow.sh
+++ b/.prow.sh
@@ -1,7 +1,23 @@
 #! /bin/bash -e
+
+# Copyright 2021 The Kubernetes Authors.
+#
+# Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
+# you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
+# You may obtain a copy of the License at
 #
+#     http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
+#
+# Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
+# distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
+# WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
+# See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
+# limitations under the License.
+
 # This is for testing csi-release-tools itself in Prow. All other
 # repos use prow.sh for that, but as csi-release-tools isn't a normal
 # repo with some Go code in it, it has a custom Prow test script.
 
 ./verify-shellcheck.sh "$(pwd)"
+./verify-spelling.sh "$(pwd)"
+./verify-boilerplate.sh "$(pwd)"
diff --git a/SIDECAR_RELEASE_PROCESS.md b/SIDECAR_RELEASE_PROCESS.md
index 4575eb819..3aee7a81b 100644
--- a/SIDECAR_RELEASE_PROCESS.md
+++ b/SIDECAR_RELEASE_PROCESS.md
@@ -11,7 +11,7 @@ The release manager must:
   kubernetes/org to request membership
 * Be a top level approver for the repository. To become a top level approver,
   the candidate must demonstrate ownership and deep knowledge of the repository
-  through active maintainence, responding to and fixing issues, reviewing PRs,
+  through active maintenance, responding to and fixing issues, reviewing PRs,
   test triage.
 * Be part of the maintainers or admin group for the repository. admin is a
   superset of maintainers, only maintainers level is required for cutting a
diff --git a/boilerplate/boilerplate.Dockerfile.txt b/boilerplate/boilerplate.Dockerfile.txt
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..34cb349c4
--- /dev/null
+++ b/boilerplate/boilerplate.Dockerfile.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,13 @@
+# Copyright YEAR The Kubernetes Authors.
+#
+# Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
+# you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
+# You may obtain a copy of the License at
+#
+#     http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
+#
+# Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
+# distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
+# WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
+# See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
+# limitations under the License.
diff --git a/boilerplate/boilerplate.Makefile.txt b/boilerplate/boilerplate.Makefile.txt
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..d0d526523
--- /dev/null
+++ b/boilerplate/boilerplate.Makefile.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,13 @@
+# Copyright YEAR The Kubernetes Authors.
+#
+# Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
+# you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
+# You may obtain a copy of the License at
+#
+#     http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
+#
+# Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
+# distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
+# WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
+# See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
+# limitations under the License.
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/boilerplate/boilerplate.bzl.txt b/boilerplate/boilerplate.bzl.txt
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..d0d526523
--- /dev/null
+++ b/boilerplate/boilerplate.bzl.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,13 @@
+# Copyright YEAR The Kubernetes Authors.
+#
+# Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
+# you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
+# You may obtain a copy of the License at
+#
+#     http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
+#
+# Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
+# distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
+# WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
+# See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
+# limitations under the License.
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/boilerplate/boilerplate.go.txt b/boilerplate/boilerplate.go.txt
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..3249913bd
--- /dev/null
+++ b/boilerplate/boilerplate.go.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,15 @@
+/*
+Copyright YEAR The Kubernetes Authors.
+
+Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
+you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
+You may obtain a copy of the License at
+
+    http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
+
+Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
+distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
+WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
+See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
+limitations under the License.
+*/
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/boilerplate/boilerplate.py b/boilerplate/boilerplate.py
new file mode 100755
index 000000000..63f74963d
--- /dev/null
+++ b/boilerplate/boilerplate.py
@@ -0,0 +1,202 @@
+#!/usr/bin/env python
+
+# Copyright 2019 The Kubernetes Authors.
+#
+# Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
+# you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
+# You may obtain a copy of the License at
+#
+#     http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
+#
+# Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
+# distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
+# WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
+# See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
+# limitations under the License.
+
+from __future__ import print_function
+
+import argparse
+import difflib
+import glob
+import json
+import mmap
+import os
+import re
+import sys
+from datetime import date
+
+parser = argparse.ArgumentParser()
+parser.add_argument(
+    "filenames",
+    help="list of files to check, all files if unspecified",
+    nargs='*')
+
+# Rootdir defaults to the directory **above** the repo-infra dir.
+rootdir = os.path.dirname(__file__) + "./../../../"
+rootdir = os.path.abspath(rootdir)
+parser.add_argument(
+    "--rootdir", default=rootdir, help="root directory to examine")
+
+default_boilerplate_dir = os.path.join(rootdir, "csi-driver-nfs/hack/boilerplate")
+
+parser.add_argument(
+    "--boilerplate-dir", default=default_boilerplate_dir)
+
+parser.add_argument(
+    "-v", "--verbose",
+    help="give verbose output regarding why a file does not pass",
+    action="store_true")
+
+args = parser.parse_args()
+
+verbose_out = sys.stderr if args.verbose else open("/dev/null", "w")
+
+def get_refs():
+    refs = {}
+
+    for path in glob.glob(os.path.join(args.boilerplate_dir, "boilerplate.*.txt")):
+        extension = os.path.basename(path).split(".")[1]
+
+        ref_file = open(path, 'r')
+        ref = ref_file.read().splitlines()
+        ref_file.close()
+        refs[extension] = ref
+
+    return refs
+
+def file_passes(filename, refs, regexs):
+    try:
+        f = open(filename, 'r')
+    except Exception as exc:
+        print("Unable to open %s: %s" % (filename, exc), file=verbose_out)
+        return False
+
+    data = f.read()
+    f.close()
+
+    basename = os.path.basename(filename)
+    extension = file_extension(filename)
+    if extension != "":
+        ref = refs[extension]
+    else:
+        ref = refs[basename]
+
+    # remove build tags from the top of Go files
+    if extension == "go":
+        p = regexs["go_build_constraints"]
+        (data, found) = p.subn("", data, 1)
+
+    # remove shebang from the top of shell files
+    if extension == "sh" or extension == "py":
+        p = regexs["shebang"]
+        (data, found) = p.subn("", data, 1)
+
+    data = data.splitlines()
+
+    # if our test file is smaller than the reference it surely fails!
+    if len(ref) > len(data):
+        print('File %s smaller than reference (%d < %d)' %
+              (filename, len(data), len(ref)),
+              file=verbose_out)
+        return False
+
+    # trim our file to the same number of lines as the reference file
+    data = data[:len(ref)]
+
+    p = regexs["year"]
+    for d in data:
+        if p.search(d):
+            print('File %s is missing the year' % filename, file=verbose_out)
+            return False
+
+    # Replace all occurrences of the regex "CURRENT_YEAR|...|2016|2015|2014" with "YEAR"
+    p = regexs["date"]
+    for i, d in enumerate(data):
+        (data[i], found) = p.subn('YEAR', d)
+        if found != 0:
+            break
+
+    # if we don't match the reference at this point, fail
+    if ref != data:
+        print("Header in %s does not match reference, diff:" % filename, file=verbose_out)
+        if args.verbose:
+            print(file=verbose_out)
+            for line in difflib.unified_diff(ref, data, 'reference', filename, lineterm=''):
+                print(line, file=verbose_out)
+            print(file=verbose_out)
+        return False
+
+    return True
+
+def file_extension(filename):
+    return os.path.splitext(filename)[1].split(".")[-1].lower()
+
+skipped_dirs = ['Godeps', 'third_party', '_gopath', '_output', '.git',
+                'cluster/env.sh', 'vendor', 'test/e2e/generated/bindata.go',
+                'repo-infra/verify/boilerplate/test', '.glide']
+
+def normalize_files(files):
+    newfiles = []
+    for pathname in files:
+        if any(x in pathname for x in skipped_dirs):
+            continue
+        newfiles.append(pathname)
+    return newfiles
+
+def get_files(extensions):
+    files = []
+    if len(args.filenames) > 0:
+        files = args.filenames
+    else:
+        for root, dirs, walkfiles in os.walk(args.rootdir):
+            # don't visit certain dirs. This is just a performance improvement
+            # as we would prune these later in normalize_files(). But doing it
+            # cuts down the amount of filesystem walking we do and cuts down
+            # the size of the file list
+            for d in skipped_dirs:
+                if d in dirs:
+                    dirs.remove(d)
+
+            for name in walkfiles:
+                pathname = os.path.join(root, name)
+                files.append(pathname)
+
+    files = normalize_files(files)
+
+    outfiles = []
+    for pathname in files:
+        basename = os.path.basename(pathname)
+        extension = file_extension(pathname)
+        if extension in extensions or basename in extensions:
+            outfiles.append(pathname)
+    return outfiles
+
+def get_regexs():
+    regexs = {}
+    # Search for "YEAR" which exists in the boilerplate, but shouldn't in the real thing
+    regexs["year"] = re.compile( 'YEAR' )
+    # dates can be 2014, 2015, 2016, ..., CURRENT_YEAR, company holder names can be anything
+    years = range(2014, date.today().year + 1)
+    regexs["date"] = re.compile( '(%s)' % "|".join(map(lambda l: str(l), years)) )
+    # strip // +build \n\n build constraints
+    regexs["go_build_constraints"] = re.compile(r"^(// \+build.*\n)+\n", re.MULTILINE)
+    # strip #!.* from shell scripts
+    regexs["shebang"] = re.compile(r"^(#!.*\n)\n*", re.MULTILINE)
+    return regexs
+
+
+
+def main():
+    regexs = get_regexs()
+    refs = get_refs()
+    filenames = get_files(refs.keys())
+
+    for filename in filenames:
+        if not file_passes(filename, refs, regexs):
+            print(filename, file=sys.stdout)
+
+    return 0
+
+if __name__ == "__main__":
+    sys.exit(main())
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/boilerplate/boilerplate.py.txt b/boilerplate/boilerplate.py.txt
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..34cb349c4
--- /dev/null
+++ b/boilerplate/boilerplate.py.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,13 @@
+# Copyright YEAR The Kubernetes Authors.
+#
+# Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
+# you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
+# You may obtain a copy of the License at
+#
+#     http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
+#
+# Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
+# distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
+# WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
+# See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
+# limitations under the License.
diff --git a/boilerplate/boilerplate.sh.txt b/boilerplate/boilerplate.sh.txt
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..d0d526523
--- /dev/null
+++ b/boilerplate/boilerplate.sh.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,13 @@
+# Copyright YEAR The Kubernetes Authors.
+#
+# Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
+# you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
+# You may obtain a copy of the License at
+#
+#     http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
+#
+# Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
+# distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
+# WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
+# See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
+# limitations under the License.
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/build.make b/build.make
index ca2be670a..9b8306c06 100644
--- a/build.make
+++ b/build.make
@@ -275,3 +275,16 @@ test-shellcheck:
 .PHONY: check-go-version-%
 check-go-version-%:
 	./release-tools/verify-go-version.sh "$*"
+
+# Test for spelling errors.
+.PHONY: test-spelling
+test-spelling:
+	@ echo; echo "### $@:"
+	@ ./release-tools/verify-spelling.sh "$(pwd)"
+
+# Test the boilerplates of the files.
+.PHONY: test-boilerplate
+test-boilerplate:
+	@ echo; echo "### $@:"
+	@ ./release-tools/verify-boilerplate.sh "$(pwd)"
+
diff --git a/cloudbuild.sh b/cloudbuild.sh
index 3ba11ecad..1edda4d3f 100755
--- a/cloudbuild.sh
+++ b/cloudbuild.sh
@@ -1,5 +1,19 @@
 #! /bin/bash
 
+# Copyright 2021 The Kubernetes Authors.
+#
+# Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
+# you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
+# You may obtain a copy of the License at
+#
+#     http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
+#
+# Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
+# distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
+# WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
+# See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
+# limitations under the License.
+
 # shellcheck disable=SC1091
 . release-tools/prow.sh
 
diff --git a/prow.sh b/prow.sh
index 44511fb23..7ccb4a4d9 100755
--- a/prow.sh
+++ b/prow.sh
@@ -1,5 +1,5 @@
 #! /bin/bash
-#
+
 # Copyright 2019 The Kubernetes Authors.
 #
 # Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
@@ -73,7 +73,7 @@ configvar CSI_PROW_BUILD_PLATFORMS "linux amd64; windows amd64 .exe; linux ppc64
 # which is disabled with GOFLAGS=-mod=vendor).
 configvar GOFLAGS_VENDOR "$( [ -d vendor ] && echo '-mod=vendor' )" "Go flags for using the vendor directory"
 
-# Go versions can be specified seperately for different tasks
+# Go versions can be specified separately for different tasks
 # If the pre-installed Go is missing or a different
 # version, the required version here will get installed
 # from https://golang.org/dl/.
@@ -227,8 +227,8 @@ configvar CSI_PROW_E2E_IMPORT_PATH "k8s.io/kubernetes" "E2E package"
 # of the cluster. The alternative would have been to (cross-)compile csi-sanity
 # and install it inside the cluster, which is not necessarily easier.
 configvar CSI_PROW_SANITY_REPO https://github.com/kubernetes-csi/csi-test "csi-test repo"
-configvar CSI_PROW_SANITY_VERSION 5421d9f3c37be3b95b241b44a094a3db11bee789 "csi-test version" # latest master
-configvar CSI_PROW_SANITY_IMPORT_PATH github.com/kubernetes-csi/csi-test "csi-test package"
+configvar CSI_PROW_SANITY_VERSION v4.0.2 "csi-test version" # v4.0.2
+configvar CSI_PROW_SANITY_PACKAGE_PATH github.com/kubernetes-csi/csi-test "csi-test package"
 configvar CSI_PROW_SANITY_SERVICE "hostpath-service" "Kubernetes TCP service name that exposes csi.sock"
 configvar CSI_PROW_SANITY_POD "csi-hostpathplugin-0" "Kubernetes pod with CSI driver"
 configvar CSI_PROW_SANITY_CONTAINER "hostpath" "Kubernetes container with CSI driver"
@@ -293,7 +293,7 @@ configvar CSI_PROW_E2E_FOCUS_LATEST '\[Feature:VolumeSnapshotDataSource\]' "non-
 configvar CSI_PROW_E2E_FOCUS "$(get_versioned_variable CSI_PROW_E2E_FOCUS "${csi_prow_kubernetes_version_suffix}")" "non-alpha, feature-tagged tests"
 
 # Serial vs. parallel is always determined by these regular expressions.
-# Individual regular expressions are seperated by spaces for readability
+# Individual regular expressions are separated by spaces for readability
 # and expected to not contain spaces. Use dots instead. The complete
 # regex for Ginkgo will be created by joining the individual terms.
 configvar CSI_PROW_E2E_SERIAL '\[Serial\] \[Disruptive\]' "tags for serial E2E tests"
@@ -796,16 +796,17 @@ install_snapshot_controller() {
 	  echo "kubectl apply -f ${SNAPSHOT_CONTROLLER_YAML}(modified)"
       done
   else
-      echo "kubectl apply -f ${CONTROLLER_DIR}/deploy/kubernetes/snapshot-controller/setup-snapshot-controller.yaml"
-      kubectl apply -f "${CONTROLLER_DIR}/deploy/kubernetes/snapshot-controller/setup-snapshot-controller.yaml"
+      echo "kubectl apply -f $SNAPSHOT_CONTROLLER_YAML"
+      kubectl apply -f "$SNAPSHOT_CONTROLLER_YAML"
   fi
 
   cnt=0
-  expected_running_pods=$(curl https://raw.githubusercontent.com/kubernetes-csi/external-snapshotter/"${CSI_SNAPSHOTTER_VERSION}"/deploy/kubernetes/snapshot-controller/setup-snapshot-controller.yaml | grep replicas | cut -d ':' -f 2-)
-  while [ "$(kubectl get pods -l app=snapshot-controller | grep 'Running' -c)" -lt "$expected_running_pods" ]; do
+  expected_running_pods=$(kubectl apply --dry-run=client -o "jsonpath={.spec.replicas}" -f "$SNAPSHOT_CONTROLLER_YAML")
+  expected_namespace=$(kubectl apply --dry-run=client -o "jsonpath={.metadata.namespace}" -f "$SNAPSHOT_CONTROLLER_YAML")
+  while [ "$(kubectl get pods -n "$expected_namespace" -l app=snapshot-controller | grep 'Running' -c)" -lt "$expected_running_pods" ]; do
     if [ $cnt -gt 30 ]; then
         echo "snapshot-controller pod status:"
-        kubectl describe pods -l app=snapshot-controller
+        kubectl describe pods -n "$expected_namespace" -l app=snapshot-controller
         echo >&2 "ERROR: snapshot controller not ready after over 5 min"
         exit 1
     fi
@@ -879,8 +880,8 @@ install_sanity () (
         return
     fi
 
-    git_checkout "${CSI_PROW_SANITY_REPO}" "${GOPATH}/src/${CSI_PROW_SANITY_IMPORT_PATH}" "${CSI_PROW_SANITY_VERSION}" --depth=1 || die "checking out csi-sanity failed"
-    run_with_go "${CSI_PROW_GO_VERSION_SANITY}" go test -c -o "${CSI_PROW_WORK}/csi-sanity" "${CSI_PROW_SANITY_IMPORT_PATH}/cmd/csi-sanity" || die "building csi-sanity failed"
+    git_checkout "${CSI_PROW_SANITY_REPO}" "${GOPATH}/src/${CSI_PROW_SANITY_PACKAGE_PATH}" "${CSI_PROW_SANITY_VERSION}" --depth=1 || die "checking out csi-sanity failed"
+    ( cd "${GOPATH}/src/${CSI_PROW_SANITY_PACKAGE_PATH}/cmd/csi-sanity" && run_with_go "${CSI_PROW_GO_VERSION_SANITY}" go build -o "${CSI_PROW_WORK}/csi-sanity" ) || die "building csi-sanity failed"
 )
 
 # Captures pod output while running some other command.
@@ -998,7 +999,7 @@ make_test_to_junit () {
         echo "$line" # pass through
         if echo "$line" | grep -q "^### [^ ]*:$"; then
             if [ "$testname" ]; then
-                # previous test succesful
+                # previous test successful
                 echo "    </system-out>" >>"$out"
                 echo "  </testcase>" >>"$out"
             fi
diff --git a/verify-boilerplate.sh b/verify-boilerplate.sh
new file mode 100755
index 000000000..815939574
--- /dev/null
+++ b/verify-boilerplate.sh
@@ -0,0 +1,54 @@
+#!/bin/bash
+
+# Copyright 2014 The Kubernetes Authors.
+#
+# Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
+# you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
+# You may obtain a copy of the License at
+#
+#     http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
+#
+# Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
+# distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
+# WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
+# See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
+# limitations under the License.
+
+set -o errexit
+set -o nounset
+set -o pipefail
+
+echo "Verifying boilerplate"
+
+if [[ -z "$(command -v python)" ]]; then
+  echo "Cannot find python. Make link to python3..."
+  update-alternatives --install /usr/bin/python python /usr/bin/python3 1
+fi
+
+# The csi-release-tools directory (absolute path).
+TOOLS="$(cd "$(dirname "${BASH_SOURCE[0]}")" && pwd -P)"
+
+# Directory to check. Default is the parent of the tools themselves.
+ROOT="${1:-${TOOLS}/..}"
+
+boiler="${TOOLS}/boilerplate/boilerplate.py"
+
+mapfile -t files_need_boilerplate < <("${boiler}" --rootdir="${ROOT}" --verbose)
+
+# Run boilerplate.py unit tests
+unitTestOut="$(mktemp)"
+trap cleanup EXIT
+cleanup() {
+	rm "${unitTestOut}"
+}
+
+# Run boilerplate check
+if [[ ${#files_need_boilerplate[@]} -gt 0 ]]; then
+  for file in "${files_need_boilerplate[@]}"; do
+    echo "Boilerplate header is wrong for: ${file}"
+  done
+
+  exit 1
+fi
+
+echo "Done"
diff --git a/verify-spelling.sh b/verify-spelling.sh
new file mode 100755
index 000000000..4aeb34d68
--- /dev/null
+++ b/verify-spelling.sh
@@ -0,0 +1,59 @@
+#!/usr/bin/env bash
+
+# Copyright 2019 The Kubernetes Authors.
+#
+# Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
+# you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
+# You may obtain a copy of the License at
+#
+#     http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
+#
+# Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
+# distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
+# WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
+# See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
+# limitations under the License.
+
+set -o errexit
+set -o nounset
+set -o pipefail
+
+TOOL_VERSION="v0.3.4"
+
+# The csi-release-tools directory (absolute path).
+TOOLS="$(cd "$(dirname "${BASH_SOURCE[0]}")" && pwd -P)"
+
+# Directory to check. Default is the parent of the tools themselves.
+ROOT="${1:-${TOOLS}/..}"
+
+# create a temporary directory
+TMP_DIR=$(mktemp -d)
+
+# cleanup
+exitHandler() (
+  echo "Cleaning up..."
+  rm -rf "${TMP_DIR}"
+)
+trap exitHandler EXIT
+
+if [[ -z "$(command -v misspell)" ]]; then
+  echo "Cannot find misspell. Installing misspell..."
+  # perform go get in a temp dir as we are not tracking this version in a go module
+  # if we do the go get in the repo, it will create / update a go.mod and go.sum
+  cd "${TMP_DIR}"
+  GO111MODULE=on GOBIN="${TMP_DIR}" go get "github.com/client9/misspell/cmd/misspell@${TOOL_VERSION}"
+  export PATH="${TMP_DIR}:${PATH}"
+fi
+
+# check spelling
+RES=0
+echo "Checking spelling..."
+ERROR_LOG="${TMP_DIR}/errors.log"
+cd "${ROOT}"
+git ls-files | grep -v vendor | xargs misspell > "${ERROR_LOG}"
+if [[ -s "${ERROR_LOG}" ]]; then
+  sed 's/^/error: /' "${ERROR_LOG}" # add 'error' to each line to highlight in e2e status
+  echo "Found spelling errors!"
+  RES=1
+fi
+exit "${RES}"
diff --git a/verify-subtree.sh b/verify-subtree.sh
index f04a9fa26..aa72194a4 100755
--- a/verify-subtree.sh
+++ b/verify-subtree.sh
@@ -1,5 +1,5 @@
 #! /bin/sh -e
-#
+
 # Copyright 2019 The Kubernetes Authors.
 #
 # Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");